Lullabies for the Lost
by desrm
Summary: He walks into McKinley for the first time in a year and everything is the same, yet everything has changed.  Will and Emma .


**Note: I've had this idea in my head for the longest time (literally about a year), and I never wrote it. Until now, of course. It centers around the question "what if Terri had actually been pregnant?" It starts from the pilot and onward. Enjoy!**

I walk into McKinley for the first time in almost a year with tired eyes, my bag slumped carelessly on sagging shoulders. Finding the teacher's lounge, I stifle a yawn, and think dreamily of the cup of coffee waiting for me before the day officially starts. Before even opening the door, I stop and watch the morning bustle in the hallways; everything here is the same as I remember it.

And yet, in a matter of months, everything has changed.

I used to be a teacher… and I guess that now I am again. But I've spent the last year behind a desk in a cramped cubicle, wearing an ill-tailored suit, calling myself an accountant. And I've never felt like more of lie.

Every day, every second I spent counting pennies or staring at spreadsheets, part of my heart had been with these kids in this school. A piece of me had always been a teacher. But I had to make some sacrifices. So I gave up the job that I loved. But I did it for the thing I love more than anything.

I'd do anything for my son.

Being a Spanish teacher in small-town Ohio isn't the most lucrative of careers, no matter how much you love it, and Terri… _God, Terri._ She barely worked a couple of hours a day, just above minimum wage.

We weren't exactly the most well off of couples, monetarily or otherwise. Then Terri told me she was pregnant. She kept pushing me to quit my job, for what she deemed a better one, so we could live comfortably as a family – or so she put it. I had always brushed the suggestion away. I loved teaching and it was what I wanted to do. We could live with less money. But then she started showing, we found out they were having a little boy, and it all became so real…

At some point I realized I loved that baby more than my job. So I left McKinley behind, and became an accountant. Something more suited to my college major, my wife told me. Since then, the past year has been such a whirlwind that it's amazing I can even remember it.

When I step into the teacher's lounge, quickly spotting the coffee pot, I do my best to ignore the gasps of my colleagues as they inevitably notice my return to the school. I'm not stupid. This is small town Ohio, and for most the biggest pastime here is gossip. I know I've been the topic of discussion around here lately; and as much as I try fight it, people talk about you when your life is a scandal to them. That'll happen when you have a baby and get divorced within a six-month period.

Divorce. God, the word itself is ugly, isn't it? The 25 year old version of me would have laughed at you if you had told him that the woman he was about to propose to would turn out to be his ex-wife. Things change, she changed, and I… well, I'm not that kid anymore.

When Terri told me she was pregnant, I could not have been happier. We were going to have a baby, and I was going to have a family. If I'm being honest with myself, a family is only thing I've ever really wanted in life. So I threw myself head first into getting ready to be a dad, and didn't pay much attention to the subtle ways in which my wife was transforming. She had always been somewhat distant. I didn't read enough into the way she was acting. She refused any sort of intimacy, barely initiated conversation, and started fights over the most mundane of topics. I chalked her increasingly cold behavior up to hormones. Somehow it didn't matter, because she was essentially giving me everything I'd ever wanted.

And then the baby came: a tiny, screaming, beautiful boy. James. I held him in awe, staring down at his little face as he settled and yawned, squinting his eyes to reveal a blue he inherited from his mother. From that first moment, I was in love. I wanted to commit every detail of him to memory, from the tiny tufts of dark blond hair at the top of his head to his perfect toes. You always hear about the love a parent has for their kids, but it's impossible to truly know until you meet your own.

The next six months were a downhill battle. Terri left her job to stay at home with the baby, and by then I had been away from McKinley for a couple of months. More often than not I would come home from work to the sound of my son crying, and the sight of my wife with her head in her hands. On many occasions I followed the sound of his cries to him alone in his crib, with Terri curled up on the couch or in any other room, alone.

It was on a particularly long lasting Friday that I came home and heard the sound of crying as soon as I opened our door. Quickly tossing my briefcase to the floor, I made my way to the nursery and found James sobbing in his crib, kicking and desperately reaching his arms out. Frantically, I picked him up, wrapping him up and hoping it would quickly calm him. He kept wailing, so I hastily looked for his pacifier and made my way to the kitchen when I didn't find it. My wife was sitting at the table, quite literally staring pointlessly at the empty space in front of her. His pacifier was sitting on the surface in front of her.

"Terri, what the hell?" I tried hard not to raise my voice and upset James even more. I cradled his tiny, struggling form in my arms, rocking him slightly in an attempt to get him to settle down. "This happens almost every day."

"Don't, Will… you have_ no_ idea." She struggled to even speak, and I found myself thinking that she was right. I had no idea what was going on. She looked so tired, defeated, and to an extent I felt sorry for her. Then the baby grabbed my shirt in his first, wailed even louder and my pity faded.

I sighed and grabbed the pacifier without another word. James' cries quickly faded and I felt the tension begin to leave my body. Looking down at his sweet face, I just couldn't understand the situation I was in: why this little boy's own mother wouldn't want to hold him, or comfort him, or give him everything she possibly could. The thought pretty much broke my heart; it was all I could do to not shed a tear as he dozed off in my arms.

Terri sunk into the couch next to me as I sat in the living room, letting her head fall into her hands. Her shoulders began to shake and I knew she was crying. I wanted to know how we got to this place. I was at the point where I felt nothing anymore. No anger, no sadness. I just didn't know what to feel.

"This needs to stop." I walked away and put the baby in his crib, admiring his little sleeping form for a moment, but quickly returning to find her in the same position. I stood in front of her then, waiting for her to say something or to even look at me, but she didn't. She just sat there, and frustration began to bubble to the surface.

"You know, I sit at a desk job that I hate all day… and I worry about our son. Not in the way that every other parent worries. But I worry about whether his mother loves him enough to pay attention to him."

"He's fine, Will. I take care of him." She sighed heavily, finally meeting my intent gaze. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face had somehow aged so much in so short a period of time.

"I… I don't know Terri. He's two months old. I feel like every time I come home, he's just _so _upset." I shifted so I could face her, looking directly into her eyes and trying desperately to get a detailed reading of her expression. "Please, just tell me what's going on."

Heavy, painful silence: the kind that makes you want to create a distraction.

"I didn't want this."

The feeling that burned in the pit of my stomach at her words was less than encouraging. I swallowed, hard, and my vision nearly blurred. All the pent up frustration came to a stand still. I craved clarity so suddenly that the force of it left me even more confused.

"What are you saying?" I whispered, my faint voice betraying my conviction.

"This… this _family_ that we have," She stood and started to pace, her motions as erratic as the way her words fell from her lips, "Kids, a white picket fence, feedings at 2AM… I never wanted it, Will. I never asked for it, and now here it is… this thing that I'm forever a part of."

Shock is an understatement. I felt like I had just been slapped so hard that I couldn't move. For a moment I tried to speak but I couldn't make a sound, let alone form words. Running a hand down my weary face, I felt the cold metal of my wedding ring graze my skin. My shock faded and gave way to nothing but disbelief.

"Forever a part of…" I repeated with a bitter chuckle, "I'm sorry I've _trapped_ you in this marriage, Terri… that me and our innocent baby sleeping down the hall have caged you in this family you don't want."

She groaned my name, as if my spitefulness had somehow affected her even more than her words had done to me. I couldn't look at her.

"Why didn't you ever tell me? You could have said something before we got married. Why didn't you even say anything before you got pregnant?"

"I didn't know!" She shouted, and instinctively I listened for the sound of James waking. I heard nothing, though, and she spoke softer. "We loved each other, Will. That's why we got married."

Loved. Past tense. I remembered how I felt about that bright and vibrant 25-year-old woman I married; the woman standing in front of me, though, I wasn't sure what I felt for her.

"You were just so happy when I told you I was pregnant." Tears spilled from her eyes, running down her face, and she swept at her messy hair. I didn't feel the urge to wipe her tears. "And I- I just don't feel like a mom, Will. I don't feel like his mom."

"He can't grow up like this. I can't let that happen."

"He's _fine_. He's healthy. And he's loved… He has you."

I let my mind wander somewhere into the future: to a vision of my son at 4 or 5, asking me why his mom won't play with him, read him a story, or tuck him in at night. I had only been a father for a number of weeks, but I knew he deserved more than a parent that didn't even feel bonded to him.

"I want a divorce."

Months later James is half a year old, I'm a single parent and my wife is officially my ex-wife.

A couple of weeks after signing our divorce papers, I heard that the Spanish teacher who replaced me at McKinley had left; without missing a beat, I called Figgins and asked for my job back. Like I said, a piece of my heart had always been in that school. I needed to go back.

So I sit in the teacher's lounge almost a year after leaving, trying to ignore the whispers that are almost certainly about my personal life. I groan quietly, wishing that it'll eventually die down and I'll become old news, and take a comforting sip of my coffee. I decide to go to my classroom early and make some last minute preparations. As I scribble _bienvenidos_ on the chalkboard, there's a soft knock and whisper at the door.

"Will?"

It's _her_ voice. My whole body seems to sigh at the thought of her name. _Emma_... I haven't seen her in a year. Not since she sat me down and did her best to get me to stay here. She's standing in the doorway of my classroom, nervousness clear in the way she stands, looking exactly the same as I remember but somehow infinitely different. And suddenly I remember the feelings of relief I had when I left all those months ago. Not because I so badly wanted to go, but because I didn't know what I would do if I stayed. Emma terrified and thrilled me in a way that I hadn't known how to deal with, even when I was not only a husband but also an expectant father.

The sight of her makes me realize that a year has done nothing to exhaust those feelings. Maybe they were just dormant, waiting for a reason to come back. And the way she's looking at me tells me she's feeling something too. Those doe eyes are so gentle but they capture me and hold me captive, setting a spark through my blood stream.

"Emma, hi…" I finally manage.

"You're back." She's using that tone of voice: the tone she had used on the day I told her I was leaving. We'd stood in a hallway crowded with students and she asked me _why_ I was leaving, with her voice a sort of mixture of disbelief and hurt. It made my heart clench then. Now is no different. "I heard you were coming back but I didn't know whether to believe it."

She's muttering nervously with a red face and toying with the broach perfectly pinned to her cardigan. I can't help the grin that pulls at my lips.

"I missed you." I sigh, and her eyes grow wide. She ducks her head to hide a smile while I cough, embarrassed. Normally subtlety is my strong suit. I curse my impulses when her hand reaches out to touch my arm.

"Welcome back, Will."


End file.
